Ooto Melody

"From today on, I will be Ikuta Erika the 11th"

- Erika's first introduction as successor

Melody Ooto ( メロディー) is a member of AKB0048's Team A and one of AKB0048's current successors. She's known as Erika Ikuta the 11th (11 ).

Erika is also known as Ikuchan (いくちゃん) and Iku (いく). She's an elegant girl with great piano skills. She's a polite girl who can speak her thoughts if she wishes. Erika tends to believe that she's right with her thoughts. This can end up a bit wrong, if she is actually wrong. She believes that stage-personalities are real and real personalites are made up.

Appearance
Erika has got purple hair and lavander-purple-coloured eyes. Her hair is long and a bit wavy. Her forhead is seen. She's usually shown, wearing her hair without any special hairdos open. As well, her hair is smoothy and thick. Similar to other members of AKB0048, Erika has got a heart-shaped light reflection in her hair. Erika's eyes are purple too. However, the lower part seems to be rather lavander-colored. In her eyes are heart-shaped light reflections too but as well a shape in the form of music sheet notes. It's believed to be there due to her wish to become either a singer or a pianist.

Erika usually chooses rather feminine and elegant clothes without flashy pattern. She loves the colour of old paper and often wears this. Even though her favourite colour is light pink, she mostly never wears this color. Erika is often seen wearing some jewelry. She never wears short things and feels uncomfortable with gravure. She has never done this and isn't planning to do it in the future.

Personality
Erika is a polite and friendly girl with good manners. She's holding herself back and waits for others. However, she often is also arrogant if she's private. Erika has grown up, knowing to be talented and great and due to this, she acts like this. As well, she's selfish as she wishes to be the best. She does anything for this. She has the tendency to be friendly towards people, she believes to be "useful" for herself. Thus, she ignores people who aren't useful.

Erika doesn't believe in magical things. Thus, she doesn't believe that being similar to an original member helps to succed but being in the management's favor. She believes in the coldness of the show buisness which resulted in the fact that she believes that popular relationship-pairrings (e.g. MiyaMiya) are planned and made up, exactly like most of the images and personalities of the members. Only on-stage personalities (e.g. Kashita Miyagi being a innocent girl who cannot harm anyone or Kimura Mei's princess character) are the images, Erika has started to believe to be real.

Eriko loves music and playing the piano a lot. She's often seen playing piano and knows many songs by heart. She can lose herself completly in playing and forgets the world around her. Sometimes, she spends the whole day with this and forgets stuff, she had to do. She enjoys to read and make up conspiracy theories even though she doesn't believe them very often.

Erika doesn't really have a Oshimen but whenever asked, she stated it's Acchan the 19th. Other members, she admires are Katomina the 8th, Sakura the 10th, Takamina the 7th, Miori the 9th and Rena the 9th.

Skills
Erika is skilled in playing the piano and knows a lot about music and its history. She knows many songs by heart and even has written own pieces. As well, she is quite good in singing. While being able to dance, she doesn't like it a much as singing and practises singing more often.

History
Erika grew up on Kazakhstar, living a peaceful life and grew up in the 'upper' society of her homeplanet's capital. As the daughter of a professional pianist and a film director, she always had a connection to the world of entertainment and music, and the world of rich people. Erika had been studing music in general since being a little children. She learned piano since she was very young and loves it. She also learned a few other instruments but didn't continue playing those.

Erika had the wish to "do something bigger" with her music since she was eight years old. However, she didn't know what exactly until she actually became interessted in 0048 due to some classmates. She eventually decided to audition but didn't know how her parents, espacilly her mother, would react. After all, she decided to audition and wait for the result before telling her parents. She planned not to tell them if she wouldn't pass. Even though her mother wasn't happy about it, she left for 0048. The reason why she didn't told her parents before the 1st round results was that she didn't want to admit that she might had failed in the first round.

She went on a hiatus for about three months in SC0125 to solve several family problems; her mother wanted Erika to return home as she considered being an idol as unfittable for her daughter. After three months, in which the problem didn't solve itself, Erika decided to simply return to 00, even if it meant cutting ties to her family. She knew that her brother would support her, and when 0048 hold a concert on her home planet, she joined them to return. She succeeded shortly after this. The name of her succession concert was Kimi wa Melody (君はメロディー, You are Melody), a reference to her catchphrase.

Team History
153rd Generation → Team A
 * Joining the 153rd Generation of Trainees (0124.04.23)
 * Promoted to Team A as she succeeded and subsequently left the 153rd Generation (SC0125.03.15)

Etymology
Ooto is written as.

can be translated as big or large and as sound. 大音 can also be translated as loud.

Melody is written in Katakana as メロディー.

A melody is a term in music that refers the different tone succession in a song.

She inherited the nickname Ikuchan (いくちゃん) from the original Ikuta Erika. Iku (いく) is a shorter version of Ikuchan. She used to be called Melo which was a shorter version of her original given name. Honoka calls her Melon-pan and Ikuspiracy.

Quotes

 * "Who are you? Who am I? You're melody~! I'm AKB0048's Ooto Melody " - Melody's Introduction Catchphrase

Songs
{{#tag:tabber| AKB0048 Singles= {| {{!}}-{{!}} AKB0048 Albums= {{!}}-{{!}} Stages= {{!}}-{{!}} Other Songs= }}
 * -|A-Sides=
 * valign="top" |
 * Reality
 * Infinity no Moyou
 * Rose no Hibi
 * -|B-Sides=
 * -|Setsuzoku no Chain wa sudeni Koko ni Aru=
 * Orchestra
 * A1 (Eien ni Umarekawaru) - Wakai Hi (Zenza Girl)
 * K1 (Hatsu no Taiyou) - Wakai Hi (Zenza Girl)
 * Melodia (Character Song)
 * Love Me! (Love & Life)

Trivia

 * Favourite Song in the New Era: Orchestra
 * Audition Song: Anata no Tame ni Hikitai
 * Favorite Food: Salat
 * Favorite Animal: Orca
 * Favorite Colour: Light pink
 * Hobbies: Piano, Music, Picknicks
 * Penlight Colour: Purple
 * Blood Type: A
 * Her voice actress was choosen because she voiced Harune Aira in Pretty Rhythm: Aurora Dream.
 * Her social media username is @Shirimasen. She originally didn't know what to use as her username. Because Honoka distracted her, she wrote "I don't know" (知りません) and continued creating an account without noticing.
 * Erika's kenkyuusei catchphrase refers her favourite song Kimi wa Melody and her name.
 * She wants to become a singer or a pianist in the future. There is also proof that she is aspiring to become a singer in her eyes, where there are music note linings alongside the heart linings.
 * Erika's originally planned birth name was Melodia which became her character song's name. The reason why it was changed is unknown.
 * She has the habit of spinning around with her hair, whenever she can do this.
 * Erika is vegetarian.
 * Erika is the youngest member of her generation.
 * Following her succession, she is the second character to have the given name 'Erika', althrough written with different kanji.
 * She likes to play games of the Persona series despite being to young to play them.
 * Her election poster in SC0125 refers the sixth installment's protagonist.